Finally baseball was back on last night as the Cubs pounded the Reds 7-2. They haven’t played since Saturday, I was having serious withdraws.

Looks like Rich Harden maybe falling back into form, much better, and luckily deeper outing then his previous start. Only gave up three hits and two runs. Good strike out to walk ratio at 8:2, man I love his changeup, so deceptive.

I’ve been taking a liking to Micah Hoffpauir at Right Field; he could also play First Base. I have a feeling Milton Bradley will be back in the starting lineup tonight, so it moves Hoffpauirs hitting capabilities back to the bench. At least we know if Milton Bradley isn’t able to play Right or Derrek Lee goes down at First Base, we could count on Hoffpauir to filling in at either position and do a decent job.

I really would like to know if Kosuke Fukodome will continue to his early season dominance. Last year he started off like this, but after each month passed his batting average kept on falling by an average of 30 points. But anyway he didn’t have any hits last night, but walked twice and scored two runs.

Theriot is a pretty good offensive player; I love him batting in the eighth hole. But, I have a bone to pick with him. His defense is atrocious at shortstop. Last night Lee saved Theriot twice and two balls horribly thrown to him. The coaches should really work with him on his defense, if they already aren’t.

Speaking of horrible moments like Theriots throws to first, did anybody catch the cat running onto the field? Shades of ’69. Then immediately following the stupid cat there was foul ball to hit where the Bartman play happened, shades of ’03. I had to leave the room after those back to back incidents.

I’m gonna start a fun segment on my blog called The Neil Cotts Watch. I’m sure my readers know how much I hate this guy. So let’s get it started.

Cotts Watch, Day 1:

Pinella put Cotts in the eighth inning last night, with a very comfortable lead. He basically just had one job to do and that’s get the ball over the plate, something he doesn’t know how to do. In just 0.1 innings last night he struck out one, gave up a base hit, and gave up a walk. Way to get runners on base with a good lead going!

Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry has been at the Cubs Triple A Iowa affiliate, the Iowa Cubs.

Heres what I think will go down:

The Cubs will call up Starting Pitcher Jeff Samardzija, move current Starting Pitcher Sean Marshall to the bullpen to be our left handed specialist, and fade out Cotts by cutting him off the team.